I don’t like you, I don’t like your business, I’m out

Business ideas from those wanting to get rich quick are often rejected by the po-faced panel on TV show Dragons’ Den, a series that sees entrepreneurs pitch their start-ups to a row of angry-looking millionaires sitting next to a pile of their own cash.

Lawyers, of course, are used to a good pitch. But how would the market fare if given a three-minute slot? Would the Dragons scrunch their faces and call it all hooey?

According to the managing partner of Knights Solicitors, the firm that former Dragons’ Den investor James Caan invested in last year, perhaps so. Knights chief David Beech said the traditional training model is “dead” because it continues to teach students in the same way it did 30 years ago. No brownie points for innovation with that one, then.

“Students today are being taught the same way I was taught 30 years ago and the legal system is not the same as it was then,” Beech told The Lawyer. “The sector has changed. It will continue to change dramatically in the next 10 years and the training system needs to reflect that.”

So while former Caan gave the Midlands firm a thumbs up for investment, perhaps the legal market’s traditional training model would see fellow Dragon Duncan Bannatyne pull out his famous catchphrase: “I don’t like you, I don’t like your business, I’m out.”